Life in the Dash

Photos courtesy of LSU Athletics.

One of the benefits of being a retired college baseball coach is that I now get to attend a great many events I often couldn’t in the past. For the 39 years of my coaching career, over 2,200 games in the dugout, I was busy preparing the baseball teams at St. Thomas University (FL), the United States Air Force Academy, the University of Notre Dame, and finally at LSU, where we competed for a national championship in the most challenging conference in college baseball. But now, a year and a half into my retirement, I can reflect on the many blessings of the last several weeks as well. I attended several weddings of my former players and birthday parties for my grandchildren; I shared lunches with friends and more former players; I made new friends on the golf course; I celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years’s with my family; I reunited with my siblings who live all over the country in order to toast our wonderful mother, Rosetta, on the occasion of her 90th birthday; and I celebrated my 43rd wedding anniversary with my beautiful bride, Karen. And I was able to do all of this without worrying about who will be our starting pitcher or how to put together a lineup for opening night in February.

I have attended a few funerals as well.

There is so much to celebrate in life and yet there are constant reminders that our time on earth is relatively short. Recently I attended the funeral of my daughter-in-law’s grandmother. As I walked through the Catholic cemetery to the burial site, I read many of the tombstones of those who had passed before and were buried there. I read their dates of birth, their dates of death. I’m sure there was celebration on the day they were born. And I’m certain there was a lot of grief on the date they passed. However, I kept noticing the dash between those dates, and I wondered to myself, “What kind of life did that person lead?” That dash between the dates of birth and death represents the most important aspect of one’s life. That dash is all the time one has to influence others, to make a lasting impact on the future of the world, and to prepare oneself to be accepted into heaven with God. While I had come to the burial to support my daughter-in-law, her family, and my son, I couldn’t help but reflect on my own life and ask, “How am I living my life?” and “What will people think of my dash?”

I grew up in a family of seven in Miami, Florida. I had four siblings and a set of parents who instilled in their children a very strong faith in God. My father was a Hall of Fame college baseball coach, teacher, and athletic administrator. My mother was a grade school teacher. Every night we would eat dinner together and listen to my parents tell us how important it was to put our faith in God, to express our love for those that we care deeply about, and to serve others. I could not even estimate how many times my parents told us of the Ten Commandments, how important it was to respect all others despite our differences from them, and how to treat others as we would want to be treated. We were taught and encouraged to say the rosary frequently.

I was an athlete growing up and learned countless lessons on the field, whether as quarterback for my high school football team or shortstop in baseball, all the way into a brief professional career on the diamond. I experienced many highs and lows in this phase of my early life, but through it all my father would tell me that my belief in God would give me the strength to deal with the disappointments that were sure to come. He would also tell me that my belief in God would encourage me to be humble with success. The lessons my parents taught me throughout my childhood and school days laid the foundation for how I wanted to live my life.

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a leader. This, I’ve realized, was my father’s influence on me. I went to my father when I was 14 years old and told him I wanted to be a head baseball coach in college just like he was. He asked me why, and I told him that I simply wanted to be a leader and influence others like he had. My father replied, “If you really want to do this, then you must do it for the right reasons.” The right reasons have nothing to do with prestige, popularity, ego, or money. The right reasons don’t even include loving sports or winning. He told me the only reason to enter the coaching profession is to impact youngsters’ lives and to teach them the important lessons of life such as how hard work and dedication can lead to success, how to work with others on a team, and how to handle both success and failure with dignity.

He went on to say that those lessons you teach student-athletes will help them be successful on the baseball field, but more importantly, those lessons will stay with them and help them be successful later in life as husbands, fathers, and professionals of all kinds. And if you teach them to act always with dignity, practicing sportsmanship and playing  by the rules, those athletes will apply those values to everything they do throughout their lives.

Many years ago, when I had just finished my second year at the United States Air Force Academy, I received a call from a player who had been a senior on my first team. Following his graduation from USAFA, he entered undergraduate pilot training for the purpose of learning to fly jets. He called to tell me that he had just had the “biggest day of his life.” That day was to be his final check ride in an F-16 to see if he was worthy of being a fighter pilot in the United States Air Force. He explained to me that he woke up in the morning very anxious about the pressure he would face that day. He then went on to tell me that to calm himself down and to focus on the task at hand, he had put on an old Air Force Academy BASEBALL t-shirt under his flight suit. When I asked him why he did that, he explained to me that when he put that shirt on, he remembered all of the lessons I had taught him on the baseball field such as how to handle pressure with composure, how important it was to believe in oneself when under stress, and how hard work prepares one to feel as though success is imminent. Needless to say, he flew a perfect mission and was then awarded his wings as a fighter pilot. I was so proud of him. However, this phone call also made me feel validated as a coach, knowing that the lessons I taught him on the field had translated into his success in a chosen vocation.

I was blessed to have the opportunities that I had as a college coach, and I never took those opportunities for granted. When I was a 24-year-old high school assistant coach, I was passed over for the head coaching job when it opened. At the time, I was deeply discouraged. I had been the assistant coach for three years, and all I wanted to do was keep coaching and leading the team. But it wasn’t to be. Still, someone reminded me that my faith in God would get me through that trying time. I remembered my lessons in faith, that often when God closes one door, He will open another. But if you spend too much time thinking about the door that closed, you won’t be prepared to take advantage of the one that opens. Shortly after I didn’t get the job I wanted at the high school, I was named the Head Coach at St. Thomas University, and my career in coaching college baseball began.

As I moved from St. Thomas to Air Force to Notre Dame and finally to LSU, the pressure to win ratcheted up with each step. However, I never felt overwhelmed by the pressure to win. I always remembered the meeting I had with my father when I was 14 years old, when he told me the reasons why people should go into coaching. The most important thing to me was positively impacting youngsters’ lives. I knew that if we recruited good enough players and if we could influence them to care about the right things, then the winning would take care of itself. I never prayed to God for us to win the games. I only prayed to ask God to give me the strength to do the right things and to provide leadership in a way that would allow the players to fulfill their potential. Fortunately, we won enough games and championships that I was able to have a career that lasted as long as it did, including 15 wonderful years at LSU.

As I reflect on my career, I think I was only able to be so fortunate because of what my faith taught me. Not only did it define my principles as a leader, but it also taught me how to handle the natural ups and downs inherent in the game of baseball and competition. Faith reminds you that something bigger is at work even amidst momentary setbacks. While continuing to believe in yourself and observing the habits and rituals that you know give you the best chance at success, you must also remain humble in light of so much you cannot control.

In baseball as well as in life, this humility can only be had by constant attention to the things of the spirit. One of the first things players learn on the baseball field is always to do the right thing, and to expect that through long practice and a good attitude, one can achieve amazing success. Even though the positive results may not be immediate and one may first fail and fail and fail again, one must be proud of himself because determination to do the right thing one hundred percent of the time will ultimately lead to great achievement. Life in general and faith in God are intertwined in this way. If one always does the right thing, no matter how small the situation, he will be prepared when God asks him to do the right thing in something major.  

I loved being the coach at LSU because there were so many citizens of South Louisiana that cared deeply about the baseball program and lived their lives to the fullest. No matter the adversity–hurricanes, oil spills, floods–South Louisianans summoned great resiliency and toughness, all while maintaining their generous spirit. Their passion for the Tigers and their positive outlook on life motivated me and inspired me to give the very best effort that I could in my job. Before coming to LSU, it was difficult for me to have left Notre Dame because that university was a faith-filled institution where one could practice what he believed without restriction. However, deciding to take a leap of faith and come to South Louisiana enriched my life, as well as that of my children and my wife. All four of my children met their spouses in Louisiana, and we now have four wonderful grandchildren. God gave me the strength to make the decision to come to LSU and, as always, he guided me to make the correct decisions.

[This essay was originally published in the Summer 2023 issue of Joie de Vivre. To purchase this issue or an annual subscription, click the “Subscribe” tab above.]

Coach Paul Mainieri, an inductee into several Halls of Fame, retired in 2021 from a 39-year head coaching career in college baseball, including 15 years spent at LSU, where he and his team won the National Championship in 2009.